I had always been interested in watching FS but the 1st program that hooked me was Michelle's 1994 East of Eden performance at Worlds. ((And IIRC, Kurt called her "kinda sexy"!!!))http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vwax0id60E

The 1st program that made me a hard core Michelle Fanatic was definitely Salome, starting at SA that season.

Aw, that is the sweetest!! I wish I had seen that program in 1994. It would have hooked me, too. You can already see the pure joy emanating from that girl ... but I wonder how many people could have predicted the transformation that would come two years later with Salome? How amazing is to think that Michelle Kwan ever got a 4.9 for artistic impression. I wonder if that Finish judge remember giving that to 13-year-old Michelle?

So did Michelle's top 10 placement that year help the U.S. get three spots back for the next year?

If I recall correctly, since Harding (no surprise) and Kerrigan skipped Worlds, only Bobek and Kwan went. Bobek crashed and burned, so the entire fate of the U.S. skating team rested on the shoulders of the thirteen-year-old Kwan. She had to place in the top ten, or America would have one sole place in the following year. She placed eighth. Consistent from the word go, in other words.

If I recall correctly, since Harding (no surprise) and Kerrigan skipped Worlds, only Bobek and Kwan went. Bobek crashed and burned, so the entire fate of the U.S. skating team rested on the shoulders of the thirteen-year-old Kwan. She had to place in the top ten, or America would have one sole place in the following year. She placed eighth. Consistent from the word go, in other words.

Tara's Olympic performances were a big part of what kept me hooked on the sport. Her excitement and joy were so infectuous. It helps if at the time you were not emotionally invested in a Michelle Kwan victory, which I wasn't.

Later, when I wanted it so badly for Michelle, I admit that it colored my feelings about Sarah's victory. But I still like to rewatch Sarah's performance and her excitement and the end of the skate.

I always liked skating, but I wasn't the diehard that I am now, following the GP and even the juniors, until I was flipping through the channels one day and saw A&P's 'Carmina Burana'.

There's just something so magical and perfect about that program. Even now I get that feeling after watching it so many times. Marina's blazing red hair and Gwendal's wavy man, the gender-bender lift, and all of the drama, mixed with those costumes is just so clear in my mind.

Gershwin by Yuna at the Olympics which made me a uber fan of her and made FS the most favorite sport... Before then, I just knew names such as Kwan, Witt, and Hamilton but had no chance to watch their performances. In my ~40 year life, I have been a baseball fan for more than 30 years rooting for teams such as Atlanta Braves but never been a serious fan of anybody (until 'it' happened...). In addition, I love watching / listening classical music stuffs (especially works by Gustav Mahler), and her performances move me as much as Mahler's symphonies do and give me more joy than any baseball game I ever watched did. What a change...

Tara's Olympic performances were a big part of what kept me hooked on the sport. Her excitement and joy were so infectuous. It helps if at the time you were not emotionally invested in a Michelle Kwan victory, which I wasn't.

Later, when I wanted it so badly for Michelle, I admit that it colored my feelings about Sarah's victory. But I still like to rewatch Sarah's performance and her excitement and the end of the skate.

This is my perspective as well. Tara's performance at 1998 Olympics, along with Ilia Kulik's, made me want to be a skater. I'm not as fond of Kulik's performance these days, although he of course deserved to win, but I still find Tara's to be magical (and, yes, she deserved the Gold as well).

Then in 2002 I was incredibly mad when Michelle lost. I was like OMG, she won the Short Program, and she deserved 2nd in the LP. She should have the Gold. I hate you Sarah Hughes. I hate you Irina Slutskaya. To me, the scandalous judging was not placing the Russian team above the Canadian team, it was placing Slutsakaya above Kwan.

I still think Michelle deserved to place above Slutskaya's aristically devoid performance, although I do enjoy Sarah's performance more now and feel she was the rightful winner of the whole competition. Michelle was actually help up in the Short Program considering the problem on her Triple Flip, since the technical mark is the tiebreaker there (5.8/5.7 for Slutsakaya, 5.7/5.8 for Cohen, 5.6/5.9 for Kwan are my grades for the SP).

I had that feeling in 1998. Lipinski did a great job that night in Nagano, but she was merely an excellent skater, and Kwan was a magical skater. I wanted someone with that magic to be rewarded. But a year or so later, a friend of mine who was a theatrical dancer and director said that some nights the lightning just strikes. He was pointing out that Lipinski was really "on" that night, and that's what carried her through. Okay, I thought, I can live with that. It was a long time before I really could be cool with it, but now as time has passed, I see that Kwan's career and her legendary quality did not depend on winning the gold medal, and conversely Lipinski's gold did not make her legendary. Browning is in the same position. His name tops many people's lists, while at least one of the men who won "his" OGM, Alexei Urmanov, was barely a blip on the radar for skating fans. C'est la vie, as they say. We fans still got the better end of the deal, because Lipinski was here and gone in an instant, while Kwan gave us over a decade of intriguing and dynamic performances. Ditto for Browning, though he did some of his best work as a pro. It's not a perfect world. Take the magic where you can get it.

Sasha Cohen's Dark Eyes at the Olympics was the first performance I really felt enchanted by. It just had that spark. Then her Romeo and Juliet performance was so poignant and gorgeous. Those two programs really made me love skating. I was so disappointed when Sasha retired right after that.